normalcy can be our death sometimes....

what do you think is "normal"?

owning a house? 
getting married? 
having a dog? 
climbing up the corporate ladder? 

and what do you think is "crazy"? 

at the risk of sounding elementary, maybe it's everything that's not normal...? 

last week i was confronted with a completely new experience.  it was something i had read about in a book, but never faced it personally.  one of our refugees decided to quit his job, turn in his food stamps, give back his bus card, leave his apartment, and refuse any kind of government assistance.  crazy, isn't it?!

is there anything in the world that would give a rational person the drive and motivation to do this?  especially now.  because it snowed last weekend, and tonight is getting down to 18 degrees.  and he is, out of his volition, in the cold without a home or food or money... 

well, i'll tell you the other half of the story: this man has the most sincere conviction that the reason he is on this earth is to tell others about God and his Son, Jesus Christ.  and for that, he is willing to give up all things to live it out to the extreme.  not for the sake of being extreme, of course, but personally, he sees God as the provider and protector of his life.  

"but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself."
matthew 6:33-34

so is it crazy?  or am i not trusting God in all his promises?  to be honest, i do worry about him, being out in the cold, with not very friendly people out there.  but i think mary was probably worried about Jesus a lot too, not having a place to rest his head or call his home.  

i have two requests:
 - please pray for him with me.  pray that God will keep him safe and bless his efforts.
 - and maybe, rethink "normal" and be challenged that the world's definition of normal is not God's standard.

not by a long shot.

namaste! meero nam kristin ho!

hello!  my name is kristin!

and i am in love with the nepali culture!  

i want to give you a brief background on nepali refugees.  these people are from bhutan and lived in bhutan until the early 1990's when they were forced out because they are of nepali descent.  they speak nepali, dress nepali, look nepali, breathe nepali.  so since then, they have been living in refugee camps in nepal.  the last 18 years.  eighteen years. 

but the UN is resettling this people in different countries, and i am so very blessed to be able to enter into their lives at this point of the story.  

you would never have guessed, i'm sure, but high point, nc has a fairly large bhutanese population.  and they are a community people, and well, this past weekend they had one of their community "events".  

some of my bhutanese friends dressed me up in a sari (!) and it was beautiful - i felt beautiful. 

 

then we headed over and spent the evening with about 50 other bhutanese refugees, eating and talking and dancing and laughing.  

now i was most embarrassed when i was called out over the sound system to dance in front of a very large audience.  i won't show you a video of that - you can thank me in my comments - but i will show you a video of someone else dancing.  it's quite amazing...!

and here's another one, if you're still interested... 

the bhutanese are really a beautiful people, inside and out.  i love getting to know more about nepali everything.  and one last picture before i end this post.  here is a photo of the first bhutanese family i met when i started working at world relief a year ago.  the bhandaris....  lovely :) 

namesake post

i have never even considered writing a blog before.  but there was one moment that happened to me, and after that, i thought, i want to document this.  so out of that moment came this blog.  i want to share it with you: 

i work with refugees, and i absolutely LOVE my job.  

a refugee is "a person who flees for refuge or safety, especially to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc" (dictionary.com).

one sunday i went over to a refugee's home to visit.  she is from eritrea, a small country to the north of ethiopia.  some other refugees were there as well.  like bereket.  he is a 23 or 24 yr old eritrean who doesn't speak more than a few words in english.  back in africa, he was an ordained orthodox priest. here, he is often a disrespected, "uneducated" foreigner.

and this sunday, after church, we both had our Bibles with us.  i motioned to his, and he showed me the tigrinya script.  then i showed him mine.  "Christian?" he asked me.  i nodded and said, "Christian."

then he began flipping through my Bible, obviously looking for something.  he said, "john".  so i showed him john, 1 john, 2 john, and 3 john.  but just john.  then he flipped back a couple of books from john to matthew.  (i think what happened here is he wanted to find matthew, but didn't know the english word for matthew.  but he knew john, and he knew where matthew was in context to john.)  then he gave me back the Bible and said, "11.  28."

i looked up matthew 11:28.  and it says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

then he acted it out, pointing to heaven, and taking the yoke off of his shoulders.  and then with his fists and arms in the air like he was showing off his muscles, gave a victorious smile.

as we went back and forth sharing verses that meant the world to both of us, i was struck by how universal God is.  he loves all.  and gives victory to all.  and he asks me to love all.

in that moment, i realized that love - God's love - speaks any language.  God's love speaks every language.